In the suburbs of Belgrade, a man can't get in nor out from his house without passing through the lands of his five neighbours. The path that should have allowed him to access his house was never built, and local bureaucrats reject the fault one on another. The fact is that his neighbours, naugthy peasans, theaten him to break his head if they take him on their lands. In these conditions, what does he have left, except learning to fly to get back to his house, where his family is waiting for him ?

Docu-fiction commissioned by French TV France 2 for the programme “Envoyé Spécial”. This film tells the (true) story of Slobodan Breneselović. In the film, he says : ”My story is a sad story. By sadness, I learnt to whistle. Now, I learn to fly.”, and ”what is very difficult, is to act like if I was mad. With the time, I'm scared to really turn mad.”

This strange story is treated with a lot of humour and great sensibility. But beyond, maybe, we can see a metaphor illustrating the war in ex-Yugoslavia. Irrationality of the mobiles and the situation of the enclosed minorities ? Indeed, we can imagine the six characters represent the six republics of ex-Yugoslavia.

We find in this nice film one of Emir Kusturica's favorite themes : the Flight.

Interviewed after the broadcast of the film (just after The polemic 'Underground') Emir Kusturica declared ”I love this reportage format. I said no to the cinema, but by doing this kind of work on reality, in a way, I say yes to the cinema.”. With this déclaration, he anticipated his decision to get back to cinema… Indeed, a few months later, he was starting the shooting of Black Cat, White Cat…